Finding your Passion and Mental Health – Randy Crabtree
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Finding your Passion and Mental Health - Randy Crabtree
Rory Henry and Will Hill talk with Randy Crabtree of Tri-Merit and Host of “The Unique CPA” Podcast about finding your passion and mental health. In this episode, Randy talks about his battle with mental health and how he is helping bring awareness by letting others know about his struggles. Listen as they talk about the powerful combination of visionaries, who have groundbreaking ideas, and their integrator partners who bring them to life. Find out what Randy says about Eisner Amber, Citrin Cooperman and Private Equity’s increased involvement in accounting. They discuss the importance of a niche, how to become an expert in a field and educating others to help drive business growth. Don’t miss this episode with one of the accounting professions leading voice “The Unique CPA” Randy Crabtree.
Rory Henry 00:00
I read a great book called Rocket fuel, where they talk about the great pairings of having a visionary and an integrator. You know, Ray Kroc has Fred Turner, Walt Disney had Roy Disney. Can you talk about that story? How you moved from that operational rolling kind of thriving in what you’re doing now?
Unknown Speaker 00:15
Yeah, I can go. I love talking about that. Because it’s to me, it’s a pretty interesting story. I lived it. But it’s a pretty interesting story. So we started trimmers, 15 years ago. And I came out of public accounting like I said, and just by default, took over manchi partner role at trimmers. You know, my partner who started this with me as an engineer, I was a CPA, I thought, Oh, I know, I know how to run a tax type firm. So I took over that role, and we continued to grow and had some pretty nice growth. And then, eight years ago, and we can go into this or not however you want, but eight years ago, I had a stroke and it kind of had me rethink everything that I would do everything I looked at, and the mental health thing I would mentioned it began I went through some mental health struggles.
Robot Voice 01:04
Welcome to AFO Wealth Management Forward a podcast about finance, accounting, technology, and entrepreneurship. We apply our decade’s worth of experience and insight into what makes businesses work, so we can help others grow both personally and professionally. In this ever evolving marketplace, we help accounting firms and financial advisors grow their practice through the adoption of holistic Wealth Management Services, learn from industry leaders and subject matter experts to unlock the secrets of their success. A podcast that shows people in companies the transformative power of technology, so they don’t fear it, but instead, harness it. Don’t fight the robots team up with them. And here are your hosts, Rory Henry, director of business development, and CEO Rob Santos of arrowroot family office.
Rory Henry 01:47
All right, everybody. Once again, I’m joined by Will Hill consults. Well, how are we doing today?
Will Hill 01:54
Rory, I am doing fantastic. How are you?
Rory Henry 01:58
I am doing excellent. It’s Monday. It’s a can’t complain. But I’m ready to get the the workweek off to a good start because we have a great guest with us today. I am excited to have him on. He is the host of the unique CPA podcast and co founder at Tri merit specialty tax professionals. He’s an author and educator, a lecturer, a craft beer enthusiast and an all around great guy. I’ve been on his podcast so I want to welcome him to the show Randy crunchy. Welcome to the show.
Unknown Speaker 02:29
Alright, thanks for having me here. And we’ll Great to see you today. And I’m thrilled to be here. I’m looking forward to the discussion.
Rory Henry 02:36
All right, Randy. To start things off here. We always try to get an origin story. So we give it a little bit background yourself like who is Randy Crabtree, then just tell us a little bit about what you do at Red merit.
Unknown Speaker 02:48
All right, so origin we’re not going back to date of birth them no,
Rory Henry 02:51
no, we’re not that far back.
Unknown Speaker 02:54
So, so a little bit of background then first before tournament I am a CPA, I came out of public accounting was in public accounting for a long time, uh, for a long time. I got a storm out here. So I’m trying to make sure we get through this without my electricity going out. So we’ll see how we do today. Started try Marriott 15 years ago, which what we are as a specialty tax consulting firm, we support tax preparers and their clients with a bunch of different tax saving opportunities. And, and that’s what Trey Merritt is what I do is pretty much talk. That’s my role in the business I go out and talk do a lot of education. As you said at the beginning, the host of podcasts which I have a blast with and and again, thanks very for being on there. And and just you’re all about talking about text grids and centers talking about mental health, talking about niche talking about anything anybody wants to talk about, and I’ll try to put my two cents in.
Rory Henry 03:50
I love it. I love I want to talk about because I know you went from managing partner, Randy. And you remove yourself from that operational side, I read a great book called Rocket fuel, where they talk about the great pairings of having a visionary and an integrator. You know, Ray Kroc has Fred Turner, Walt Disney had Roy Disney. Can you talk about that story? How you moved from that operational rolling kind of thriving in what you’re doing now?
Unknown Speaker 04:13
Yeah, I can go I love talking about that. Because it’s to me, it’s a pretty interesting story. I lived it. But it’s a pretty interesting story. So we started trimaris, 15 years ago. And I came out of public accounting, like I said, and just by default took over managing partner role at trimaris. You know, my partner who started this with me as an engineer, I was a CPA, I thought, Oh, I know, I know how to run a tax type firm. So I took over that role, and we continued to grow and had some pretty nice growth. And then eight years ago, and we can go into this or not however you want, but eight years ago, I had a stroke and it kind of had me rethink everything that I would do everything I looked at, and the mental health thing I would mentioned it began I went through some mental health struggles, and that kind of led had to this change. And so what happened though, it took me three years to realize, after the stroke, that my passion wasn’t managing the firm, my passion wasn’t, you know, processes and procedures and KPIs and all that my, my passion was education and thinking of the next big thing we can do and how are we going to, you know, not expand as much, but how are we going to get our message out as much, which leads to expansion. And so, a little bit of a fight. I kind of fought it for a while. I don’t want to change this role, because it’s my identity. It’s who I am, I made the partner what am I what why would they change? And that took that three years to realize, no, I’m not, I’m not meant to partner. And they honestly, I’m not that good at it. Looking back now, honestly, because it wasn’t a passion. And so what happened is, after that three years, Andy Lane who started trimaris, with me, he took over that role. And he was built for that role. And so this wasn’t just me going to something I like to do. This was him coming to do something he likes to do. He is this, I found out after the fact, I didn’t know this about him. He grew up playing, building a business. That was his games, when he played when he was a kid, he goes out playing baseball, and you know, tag and all this, he was like playing business. And this is what his passion was, I have no idea how I didn’t know this, I have no idea. But when he took over that role, and just put this vision out, and now we’re on this, I don’t even know what’s called EOS system we’re installing now. And you guys probably know this stuff. That’s not I don’t even want to think about that stuff. He’s just got us growing in this direction where we are, we are like, it’s not even the hockey stick. It’s like we’re going straight up through the roof right now with business wise. But I also like taking credit for that because I’m out in the road, letting everybody know what we do and that we’re there to support them and help them with tax saving opportunities. So that was that was this role change that that I am like living my best life right now. And I can’t imagine doing anything else. Sorry. Was that a long story?
Rory Henry 07:13
No, I mean, you’re living your best life. I hear you on the unique CPA Podcast. I’m obviously we have had some great guests. On our podcast, I saw you had an all star list of accounting thought leaders on the season end. And one of the guests that you had on Ellen Colton, I’m fascinated with what’s going on in the profession. Randy when it comes to private equity and m&a. I mean, he called it a tsunami of private equity is coming. The accounting professionals Wait, can you talk about that? And what you see moving forward the profession?
Unknown Speaker 07:44
Yeah, so I get so I originally talked to Alan about this last probably a year ago. He was on the podcast and we were talking about and this is right after the EisnerAmper the really the first major private equity deal happened and then we had Citrin Cooperman come in, and then we had Oh, I can’t remember the name a se was my my, like, I always forget their name. But another large, you know, Top 40 Top 50 firm had private equity. And and when Elena and I originally talked, he was saying, Okay, what they’re looking for is, you know, top 20 firms, they’re looking for X dollars per revenue, or X dollars per partner partner or take home pay of x and, and all these bullet points of what they’re looking for private equity and how they’re going to come in. And what he said when I talked to him last week on the live podcast was they’ve they’ve figured this out. Now in the short time that this is going to work I still I’m I’m not committing to this is going to work now. Alan is assured me it will. And I believe me, he’s a lot more into this and knows a lot more than I do. But but he said that this is not top 20 firms anymore, this is Top 100 This is gonna be top 200. This is just going to keep going down to where he is saying, and I’m just quoting Alan, which I love. And he’s a great guy. He’s saying a year from now, the accounting profession is going to look completely different than it does today. And I trust him. I don’t know what that means. My only concern with private equity is I don’t see the end game. I mean, because private equity doesn’t want to be your partner for the next 100 years. Like we have some of these firms that have been around for 100 plus years, or whatever years now. 50 Plus for sure. They want to they want to grow, they want to get out take their money and then someone else comes in. I don’t see how you do that 510 1520 times at some point there’s an end and I don’t see what that end is I don’t understand it. I’m maybe I’m not smart enough. But there’s that end, every public accounting firm either merges up into someone else and then they you know, we become the big four again and these big four public companies it’s it’s all public. I don’t know, I don’t see the the end. But right now, if you’re a partner in a firm and private equity comes calling, you’ve got a huge opportunity to cash out not only once, but if you’re a younger partner multiple times, so it’s very intriguing, I’m sure to the firm’s themselves, especially in rowing, I can, you can cut me off anytime. Especially with our aging, you know, partner base, but in at least in the top, let’s say, you know, three or 400 firms, I mean, there’s a pretty aging partner base, and they have to have some kind of exit strategy. And now, not only do they have an exit strategy that is going to get them paid, but it’s going to get them paid more than they expected to get paid when they originally put this plan together. So it’s an interesting thing, I just want to see what happens in the long run.
Will Hill 10:48
Well, do you have something? Yeah. So I have, I have said, with the utmost authority of zero knowledge. I can envision a world where this influx of private equity accelerates some of the role adjustments at the mid to top level of firms. And so as as I’m thinking about that, I’m, I’m thinking around, where those that say, Hey, I want to do something else and different, but it may didn’t maybe it didn’t fit into the old structure. And so I can see a world where Pe lends itself to more organizational structure shifting within firms. And what made me think about that was also your story, Randy, of, hey, you stepped out from management and do something different. And that sort of a shift becomes a little bit easier and more comfortable, perhaps in a PE world? So your response there?
Unknown Speaker 11:45
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And also, like you said, he comes in private equity comes in now we can, we wanted to get an HR consultant, we just haven’t had the opportunity. Now we have this big money that we can just go acquire an HR firm. And now if that’s my passion, I can go be in the HR side, or I can be on the IT side, or I can be on the financial services side, or whatever that site is. Because now we have more opportunity. So I think that’s great. Honestly, why don’t really want to be a partner in a CPA firm. I just, that’s not my passion anymore. But man, I’d like to see what those opportunities are right now. Because the money is just is just big. And I’m hoping it’s not just a greed, money thing? And I don’t think it is. I think there’s other opportunities for it. And what you just said, Well, if I can, if I can get into something I’m a lot more passionate about. Just because we have private equity money coming in. I think that’s huge.
Will Hill 12:44
So let me shift gears for a moment, because you said something else about your your role and enjoying that education piece. And I’ve said for a while that my one of my favorite parts of working with accounting firm owners is that they have hearts of teachers and that they care about the knowledge of their clients. Sometimes, accounting firm owners or leaders in firms miss the fact that their clients need to be educated. And there’s probably some signs that they overlooked. Give our audience just some things to look for. Or say, now it’s time for education of some sort.
Unknown Speaker 13:21
Yeah, so I can speak to what I what I see. And so so what I see in an education standpoint, is that that firms in general are, are busy firms have been swamped the bid swap forever. But the last two and a half years, they’ve been swamped. And so they can’t, as a CPA firm, as a taxpayer, you can’t know everything. It’s it’s just the case, you know, the tax code exists. And I’m going to talk the tech side of it, because that’s my passion. And we’ve already decided, I stick to my passions. Accounting is not a passion at all. In fact, I probably am the worst accountant out there, that being a CPA. But what I see is that, that the tax preparer, and I usually say CPA, because I am one and I could see EA could say tax preparer could say whatever. So I try to let that know. But the bottom line is, there’s huge tax saving opportunities out there that they just don’t know exists, they have an idea. One thing I could point out is two and a half, let’s say a year and a half ago, when the ERC really went through employee retention credit went through major changes. CPAs were in the middle of this nonstop tax season. And they knew this opportunity was out there to help the clients. They had no bandwidth and I hate using that term, but they had no bandwidth. I am going to use it to do it. And so I wasn’t even at that time looking to be doing an employee retention credit as a service. I just got intrigued with it. I like there’s just certain things I like learning. So January I remember the date, and I remember who I heard it from A January 7 of 21, I was listening to Tony Nitti speak on at a conference and he starts talking about these changes in the employee retention credit, I’m gonna holy cow, this is unbelievable the amount of money that’s available for these businesses that need it. And so what I started to do is just dig into it, and learn everything I could. And then I was gonna start educate on it at that point, I wasn’t even gonna be a service, I was just I love educating and I was learning so much, internally, somebody in our firm, said, Well, we have to do this as a service, there’s just there’s a need, because they CPAs are so busy that they don’t have an opportunity to do this, but their clients need this. I told them, If you want to put it together, I’ll let everybody in the country know what this is. But I am not going to run the program, again, stick to my fun and my passions. And so from an education standpoint, what I see is there’s just things like that there’s, there’s, there’s all these the tax code is, you know, whatever, a mile high, and you can be an expert in little pieces, little quarter miles of it, or not even quarter, you know, a fraction, a yard of it at a time, you can’t be an expert in everything. And so educating, being able to have opportunities where you can go out as a CPA as a tax preparer and learn from someone else who has this expertise, I think is just huge. And I have, I have this philosophy of share my knowledge whenever I can. I’ll educate you as deep as I can. And unfortunately, it would take a long time for me to make you an expert and very much everything we do. But I know if I educate people enough, they’re gonna realize, hey, they know what they’re talking about. Let’s go talk to Randy, and let’s see if they can help us with their clients.
Rory Henry 16:39
Yeah, I mean, that really goes into the goodwill. I was gonna say
Will Hill 16:43
that, that what you just said at the end, Randy has often been what some firm leaders have used either as an excuse or the reason I’m not going to judge the motivation for not getting into some of the advisory side of of selling the relationship, right to say, oh, but if I tell them everything I know, they won’t need me know, if you tell them what, you know, they will trust your expertise and realize that it’s so deep, they can’t even touch it, and they will want it even more. It’s a little bit counterintuitive. You just have to have competence in it.
Unknown Speaker 17:15
Okay. All right. Sorry, I had to stop. And it’s just because there was so much was it? I just
Rory Henry 17:20
Alright, let’s continue. That’s good. We’re I mean, we’re to leave, or where we leave off real? Well. We go on the next question.
Will Hill 17:30
Just before we get started, you’re good. You’re good? I mean,
Rory Henry 17:39
yeah, sorry. Yeah. So Randy, this kind of goes into niching, though. So you know, I know you’re passionate about niching. You went from a generalist to now niching. And being able to educate a niche and be able to really dive deep, and provide you know that that service offerings valued? Can you talk about that importance of going to that niche, and why you believe fervently in it?
Unknown Speaker 18:04
Yeah, and so I didn’t even realize I kind of fell into a niche. I didn’t even realize that, that there was an opportunity for this r&d tax credits kind of just came calling to me because when I was in public accounting, I was a generalist, and proud of it, hey, like, like we were just talking about with? Well, I know, parts of the text goes exist. I know, there’s other people that could probably help me or I can dig in. At the time, I probably wasn’t googling it, because that was a while ago, but I knew there was, you know, I knew if I had a LIFO project, I knew somebody that did life, I knew there was experts out there in this. I love public accounting. And this is another story, but probably not time for that one, I just got burnt out, we built our firm to tech savvy. But I was so fortunate that that happened that not in hindsight, because that allowed me to realize that there’s a niche opportunities out there. And by being a niche expert, that’s, again, my passions, my passions are educated, I can learn all this stuff, and I can go educate and I can go out and share this knowledge. And when you do that, and we just talked about this, that it will say that this is not your clients going to do it by themselves then just because you shared your knowledge. And as they understand, you’re the expert, you’re the go to and you can do this so so when we started building out this niche practice, I just so quickly realized this is so much more fun than dealing with a fast food restaurant and then a construction company and then a medical office and those were great clients to talk to and that probably would hurt those clients because I wasn’t an expert in every one of those industries by being a niche. Now I’m an expert in this portion which for me happens to be a portion of the tax code. But I think the same thing within a public accounting firm if you could be a niche expert in an industry. I think that is gigantic because you can do Hey my egos So through you can do what I do is become an expert in certain aspects, whether it’s a code, whether it’s an industry, and you can go out now, and you know, when you’re talking, everybody knows that, let’s assume your niche is restaurants, you’re the restaurant guru, they’re going to go to you because you know everything about restaurant, you know, price, you you inventory control, you know, you know, and I don’t even know though, so that’s I’m not an expert in the restaurant. But all of a sudden, you know, that and you gain this, this following people realize their word of mouth comes out that, hey, you know, Will is the restaurant the expert, let’s go the will with any questions we have, or if we’re going to start a new restaurant, or if we need to change our accounting firm. It’s just, I can’t and even if you’re a big firm, I’m getting passionate. Now I’m just jumping. Even if you’re a big firm, doesn’t mean you have to be a niche in just one thing. You You need somebody passionate to come in and run whatever that your trucking niche, your craft brewery niche, your medical niche, and if that’s their passion, and then that shows through to the clients, you’re just gonna, you’re just going to go through the roof, because people are going to feel that passion and that knowledge within you so niche, whether it’s an aspect of the tax code, or it’s an industry, or even, I’m a partnership, niche expert. And because partnerships are I don’t want to be a partnership expert. That’s seems like a pain in the butt to me. But people that do it, I give them so much credit because that they are unique situation unto themselves. So I feel you really need to do that to become an expert at what you’re doing.
Rory Henry 21:42
Yeah. And to kind of go back here, Randy, I’m interested on what you see moving forward, because we had this influx of cash, we had the PvP, we have the ERC, but that those government funds, those government programs are going to cease to exist. And those businesses aren’t going to be flushed with cash. What do you see happening here in regards to the profession, because we may have a downturn, the economy looks like that can happen, you know, what are your views moving forward?
Unknown Speaker 22:11
Well, that depends if company is not profitable, they’re not going to need me anymore. So I guess I’m out of business. I, you know, I’m no expert at that. I’m no expert at you know, predicting what’s going to happen. I just think if you’re a business and you’re dealing with somebody who in a public accounting, setting a CPA that is, is there on your behalf, knows your business, from a niche knows the tax code, or has expertise to bring in, you put yourself in a great situation. So that’s the thing that as as a tax payer, you’ve got to get that and I think we’re also that beginner where you did just this, you know, client accounting, their advisory services, you got to get that best advisor for you personally. And I think that’s invaluable in a down economy as much as an economy. And so we’ve seen that the last two and a half years Anyways, now if we ever change in a down economy, we’re gonna escape and be more valuable. I think.
Rory Henry 23:05
I always ask my guests in the podcast, Randy it because the advisory the term, you know, is can mean different things to different people. What do you how do you define the term advisory for the CPA?
Unknown Speaker 23:17
Yeah, so So selfishly, I, I define it as tax advisory I, whenever I’m talking to advisory, I taught the easiest way to eat. Everybody has their own definition of what let’s say Cass is playing an advisory client accounting, client accounting, advisory, advisory service, whatever it is, everybody has their own definition. As long as you define it yourself and your clients understand it, it doesn’t matter what definition you use. This is our how we look at advisor and so for me, I look at advisory. Two Steps me advising tax preparers to advise their clients on tax saving opportunities. So for me advising is education for them, it’s being able to identify clients that they can bring tax saving opportunities for. That’s that’s how I define it. But I mean, in general, you know, I’m a cashflow analyst I’m advising on that I am an inventory analyst. I’m gonna advise on that. There’s just so many definitions out there as long as there’s a service up and above. Here’s a good here’s the here’s what I say. And besides that, you get writing you got to cut me off at some point. I love it. You get passionate. When I say is that that? Anybody can be a reporter of what happened. Yes, I can report what you did during the last year I can do your accounting, not me. Somebody else who’s good at it can do your accounting and report what happened. Anybody can prepare a tax return. Here’s what your books are. Here’s what it is. An advisor affects the bottom line, whatever part of the business it is a Pfizer in my mind affects that, whether it’s a tax base, that tax issue, whether it’s an accounting issue, whether it’s just helping you from a growth standpoint to go Get the newest best SBA loan, whatever it is, but be it be it be an effector of that clients businesses to help them move forward rather than a reporter of what happened. Yeah.
Rory Henry 25:12
That’s where the real real margin is, you know, and I know you’re part of the Intuit pro tax Council, I think you were just starting when we talked on your podcast, and they just rolled out their tax planning software, Randy. So they’re going into this advisory, nor this future facing services. Can you talk about any of the work you’ve done with Intuit here? And, you know, are we seeing a wider adoption of more future facing advice and tax planning?
Unknown Speaker 25:36
Well, I think advising software is going to continue to grow. And like you said, I’m not this is not a sales pitch. And do it does have their software that’s just rolling out. In fact, I’m very fortunate I get to speak at the rollout conference on this, I think they call the summit, I think it’s an invite only thing. So I don’t think it’s a huge gap. It’s not like CPA connect, where there’s gonna be whatever 1000s of people in in December in Vegas, this is a smaller crowd, but it’s a it’s kind of the rollout, official launch of the software. So I get to speak at that, in October, and my whole speaking is going to be what we just talked about the tax advisory, because that’s what the software is identifying opportunities, which the software is going to help you do once you identify. Okay, there is this opportunity. What is it? What’s the value of it? Does it make sense to go forward? And so that’s I haven’t written it yet. And so, but that’s where I’m leaning towards is doing that. And so it’s pretty cool. When I got asked to be on the council, this was something that they said that the one of the reasons that they asked me to do it is because this advisory software was coming out. So I’m hoping to be able to affect a change in the software developments going forward. And I help tax preparers identify even more opportunities using technology.
Rory Henry 26:58
Awesome. All right. Well, let’s talk lastly here about mental health. Because I know you’re passionate about this, Randy, I know you went through a stroke here and you are helping other CPAs out there others in the profession, you know, live an improved quality of life. Can you talk about what you’re doing on the mental health side?
Unknown Speaker 27:16
Yeah, so this is, I seem like feel like I said, passion 100 Times today because the passion podcast is this. Hey, I have to start a new podcast called The Passion podcast. I like that. I’m assuming somebody has that name. I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. So So for me, we talked about eight years ago, I had a stroke. I struggled with mental health issues for about four, four and a half years afterwards. And it was, you know, I had a stroke. I was so fortunate. I mean, I am I think it’s 8% of people that have a stroke end up without any deficits. So and I may be quoting that percentage wrong. I’ve been saying it for a while. So hopefully I’m right. But I ended up having no deficits, well, then I can tell at least. And so I shouldn’t have had an issue with the problem was four days after I had my original stroke, I had a second stroke small but I second stroke. And then after that second stroke, every single time I felt something in my head, and we all feel something in our head every day, we’ll even though it it would kick in that like PTSD. I’m having another stroke, I’m gonna die, I’m not going to survive this time, I’m going to be disabled this time, I’m going to whatever. And now frequently when
Rory Henry 28:32
that happened, Randy Ah, it probably
Unknown Speaker 28:34
more often than I would think it didn’t start I had my so whether it ended up being was a PTSD, which turned into panic attacks, which turned into depression. The first one was I had my stroke in February. And I really think the first one was about five months later, where I just started with a panic attack. And then what would happen it would be the depression, which I would call a melancholy feeling, I would tell my wife, I’m having this melancholy feeling again, and look back, it was just me going into some kind of funk depression. And luckily, it wouldn’t last a long time, but it would happen. But that lasts a long time from his standpoint and went on for four and a half years. And and so it would happen a lot when I would be at conferences for some reason. I don’t know if it was the crowds. But the cool thing was people I worked with realized what was happening and they like, hey, let’s let’s go outside. Let’s leave let’s go for a walk, try to get my mind to not think about that. I’m going to die, which I wasn’t but my mind was telling me that and so I did not. I did not hide this. For the most part from people, that depression and all that but that didn’t tell him the lowest lows that would happen. But I think it was important to to be open to at least share what was going on. I would tell him My wife was going on. And so it’s not a fun thing. It was my mind and control of me rather than me in control of my mind. And so my, my brain would be having these thoughts and ideas that would scare me. And I was like, How do I get out of this. And finally, it was somebody, a counselor that ended up really just listening. That’s what happened. But somehow, in her listening, she directed me certain ways. And that make it and given you the truncated story, which for me, that’s pretty good. She got me thinking certain ways. And I finally got to a standpoint where a point where I was sitting in my melancholy places where that would call this just a place in my house, I would go sit when I was starting to get down low. And one day, four and a half years later, and I know this is a PG podcast, so I will not use the words I used. But I used let’s see, how do I say is talking to my head, Fu, you’re not real, get out of my head. I’m not listening to you anymore. And somehow after a few days of doing that, I just started feeling like you can go away and that’s not that easy. Don’t that wasn’t the cure all. Nobody can use those words, and it’s not a therapist. Right? And don’t. But for me, that’s what happened. And so now, I am so happy, though where I am today and what I get to do and everything that that it’s it’s so nice, I can go share that story with others, which we do it like in an hour presentation, even getting CPE out for it now. So I’m doing that in presentations. I’m doing it on podcast, I got one this week that we’re going to do this, I now have CPA firms asking me to come in and do this for them, which I think is great. And that first endpoint is me that someone’s there. Because this is way too hidden in a lot of places people are not talking about there’s a stigma attached to mental health issues. It’s the person that’s living under the viaduct has got mental health issues. It’s not the person sitting in the cube next to me that has mental health issues. And unfortunately, it is and so let’s try to get that out in the open and, and hopefully, you know, help people get
Will Hill 32:19
better. Yeah. Randy, as you were you were sharing that story and talked about the one therapist just listening. I, I’ve seen that a lot in in my time, corporately working with businesses that I’ve worked with, where when something comes up, it seems to be just kind of brushed aside by those that had the opportunity to instead listen. Yep. And I think that’s, you know, I could take a challenge as to my own personal mental health inventory. But I think the greater challenge is, how do I respond? When I get that weird hint, we’re trying not the right word, but that different hints, know from somebody? And how do I choose to listen as opposed to brush it off? So hopefully, our listeners might choose to listen to that, not just the podcast?
Unknown Speaker 33:04
No. And that’s, that’s great. Well, it’s listen, and then just keep the conversation going. Even if you don’t know what to say, you just keep it going. And then there’s certain things I, I got a list of like 20 things. I’m no expert by any means. I’m not an expert. But I’ve got at least 20 things that I’ve learned just by being really good at Google. And, and researching and that they say these are the things you should do. So we go through this during
Will Hill 33:28
the presentation. I love it. Yeah.
Rory Henry 33:29
Have you wrote an article on this?
Unknown Speaker 33:31
I did. Actually, recently in accounting today, we had one which the title was burnout, it’s not a badge of honor. I think that’s what it was called. Because I think sometimes people realize they think I got to work, work, work, work, work, work. And they think that this burnout is something that this just comes with the profession. And it’s not, you’re going to be more protective or decorative. If you take time out for yourself, if you take these breaks, if you’re not working on Sundays, if you’re not working, you know, seven days a week, if you’re not working till midnight, getting sleep, you’re gonna end up being more productive. And so we go into that a little bit in that article.
Rory Henry 34:07
I love it. I love it. All right. Randy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. It was excellent. I’ll put that article in the show notes. And then if anybody wants to reach out and get a hold of you and try me out, what’s the best way to do so.
Unknown Speaker 34:20
So you can find all my information on our website, which is try tra dash maritime era t.com. There’s a I think, meet the team page. I’m on LinkedIn. We were talking ahead of time. I’m trying to do some stuff on Twitter and that I’m not super active on there yet, but I’m getting better. So LinkedIn and our websites the best bot, but if you go what is it you you follow somebody on Twitter, see? All right.
Rory Henry 34:49
I’ll do some more. Follow up. Follow back. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 34:51
exactly. There you go. So that’s the best bet. All
Rory Henry 34:55
right. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Will Hill 34:58
Hey, pleasure to be here. Thank you Rory Thank you Randy Alright have a great day
Robot Voice 35:02
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